Marigolds (2nd Anniversary Love)
by NullNoMore
Summary: A human and an Orphe meet in NLA. There is conflict, but it also might be the start of something beautiful. My slight offering for the 2nd International Anniversary of XCX. All the good stuff belongs to Monolith Soft, including 2 of these 3 dorks.


**Happy 2nd International Anniversary!**

 **a/n: Human and Orphe meet in NLA, and there is conflict.**

 **All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, including 2 of these 3 dorks.**

* * *

She was the only child of ambitious parents. It had made her lonely. It's not that her parents didn't allow her friends. It's just that between the gymnastics and dance classes, the piano lessons and Saturday Chinese school, she'd never had time for friends except in 50-minute chunks. As she'd grown up, it had gotten sharper. The cram school, the softball team, the dance troupe, she'd known all the other kids and yet she'd never shared anything but talk about the event directly in front of them. She'd become a polite, focused, self-contained young woman. But at age 20 she'd grown reckless and rebelled, finally. Such a small rebellion. She'd switched majors from pre-med to botany. Then she'd enrolled in an oddball summer project, studying the effects of a mega-battery storage facility on Joshua trees. Her parents had stopped speaking to her when she left that June.

It hadn't been a battery storage facility. She hadn't been allowed to tell them that, and she wasn't sure it would have mattered. They still hadn't responded to her vague texts when ECP02 White Whale left Earth. She'd fallen silent at some point during the journey and still hadn't quite regained the habit of talking to people.

He was the exact opposite. His large family surrounded and supported him. He had uncles and aunts and cousins by the handful, always chattering away, usually arguing some point with all their might. He was curious and outgoing. He was also deeply selfish and impulsive, and his carelessness had destroyed a project she'd been developing for months.

Didn't he realize how limited space was in New Los Angeles? Empty space, open to the sky and suitable for cultivation, was so rare as to be nonexistent. She'd put her reputation on the line to persuade Hope to cede just one small bank of earth for Rachel's plants. A curious selection, to be sure, since the plants were only minimally useful for the city. Rachel didn't even find them particularly attractive. However, a small team of very insistent BLADEs from a coalition of divisions (Interceptor, Reclaimer, and Outfitter) were funding the mission handsomely. Hope had hinted that the ECP itself was interested in the results, for their own arcane reasons.

She rounded to the corner of the church, ready to check on her babies. Sure, they were uninspiring plants, but this crop's color was promising to be more coppery than golden. If she could only boost the intensity of the color, she might …. She stopped in horror. The netting that had covered the banks ever since she'd found a Nopon asleep in the center of the plot had been tossed to the side so that it was covering the sidewalk. There was a horrible crunching sound as she watched her plants being devoured by a long-limbed alien.

Words failed her. Her only response was an incoherent scream. The Orphe raised his triangular head from her devastated crop and nodded. "These are the most delicious things I have ever eaten. I begin to understand what Ma-non feel about pizza."

"Those things were my work!" she screamed at him.

"Your work is excellent. You must grow more."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Rachel sat down on the tangled netting with a graceless thump. She banged her forehead slightly with her comm device. "You don't … months! … the seeds … I'm not sure if … ! No no no no no." She was shaking with anger and hopelessness.

The Orphe stopped and tilted his head. His voice became careful. "They were not ready for consumption?"

"No! They never were for consumption. I needed the flowers to get seeds for another round of hybrids. Now I have nothing! You didn't even leave me stubble to try and get cuttings." She looked at the barren ground, scraped clean by the hungry alien's claws. She smacked her forehead a few more times.

"You have more seeds?"

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

The Orphe made a coughing sound and spat something wet into his hand. She shuddered when he offered it to her. "Would this…"

"Oh my god, do you not get it? There is no going back. Congratulations. Unless they have some packets of seeds tucked away in the Lifehold, you were the last creature to see a marigold in bloom." She covered her face with her hands and tried not to sob.

The Orphe examined the soggy green and tan mulch in his hand, then considered the distraught botanist. "Maybe my uncle can help. He helped last time."

She looked up at him with dead eyes. "You've exterminated species before?" she said dully.

He ducked his head and nodded. His gray feelers drooped. "No. Almost. But my uncle Mon'barac prevented disaster, and I predict he has 89.3% chances of succeeding this time as well." The Orphe reached down and offered her a non-mulchy hand. "We can find him on the Ma-non ship at this time of day. But let us hurry. The sooner we bring him this (he waved the dripping vegetable mash in his other hand), the better the chances are."

Xcxcxcxcxcxxcxsecondanniversarysorryxcxcxcxcxcxcx

It had worked. Yun'tonam's uncle wasn't best pleased by the news that his kinsman had destroyed another precious specimen, nor was he happy about consuming regurgitated debris. Still, he was good enough to do what was needed to recover the genetic information and thus reproduce the flowers. "At least this does not include a religious conflict. And no beatings," Yun'tonam confided to Rachel.

"I'm not so sure. I think the stakeholders want the flowers for a ceremony. They mentioned a deadline of October 31st. The start of Day of the Dead for some of us."

"What is that?"

"A time to remember the people who died before us. Our families." She frowned. "Not my tradition, but it's well known … it _was_ well known in the region we came from."

"Eh, what is that?" interrupted the older Orphe. He'd been kneeling over the stripped plot, slowly coaxing new sprouts in neat rows.

"Nothing. We were commenting on the similarities between diverse groups. Connections to ancestors." He pulled Rachel a few steps away from the flower bed. "Please don't tell me the spirts of your family live in the flowers I ate." His burbling voice was a mere whisper.

"No. I think they're used more as a sign of respect, or a way of coaxing spirits back. I'm not sure, exactly," she whispered back. "Did you eat something sacred before?"

"A tree belonging to the Prone. I am still paying off that mistake. The Prone hit very hard." His feelers brushed her cheek. "You are more kind, but just as passionate about your charges. I am sorry I took what was not mine."

"Don't Orphe ever ask before eating things in public spaces?"

"Others are better at remembering. I am 76.3% more likely to fail at being considerate."

"You should work on that." Again, one of his feelers swayed in her face and she blinked.

"Oh, I am rude."

"No, no, it's okay." She gently traced a finger along the fronds of his antennae as she pushed it away. It was stiff but not scratchy. "They feel like wild grasses from home. They called them pampas grass. Invasive species, but I liked them."

He shivered slightly, from feeler to his feet, then nodded and moved a little away. "Are they good or bad to eat?"

"If I said bad, would that stop you from trying?" She smiled tentatively.

The chittering response he made might have been a giggle.

"You two. Stop whispering and attend to the plants," Mon'barac called to them. He was standing over the newly finished plot. Dozens of plants sprouted in steady lines, all in full bloom. "Mmmm, they have an enticing scent," he said, inhaling.

"Uncle, please do not…"

"Unlike you, Yun'tonam, I do not have to learn every lesson repeatedly."

Rachel was once again speechless, but this time with joy. Not only was each plant covered with mature flowers, they were the most brilliant orange, a living festival of blooms. "These are perfect. Better than before. The ones that were eaten were more of a brownish color."

"I noted from the sample's genotype that you had been selecting for certain pigments. I took the liberty of forcing that trend. I hope you do not mind."

"Mind? You've saved me generations of trouble. But, oh…" Her face fell. "The delivery date isn't for several months. I'll still have to grow a new crop for that deadline"

"So we can eat these?" the two Orphe said in hopeful unison.

"No." She considered. "Marigolds are long lived for annuals, but their blooms aren't. Unless…" She hesitated. "Well, can I trust you?"

The Orphe turned to exchange a glance. "What does your Ovah say, nephew?"

"It says I have this is important chance to demonstrate strength. I predict the chances of my failing to be only 8.5%."

They turned to Rachel and waited patiently as she considered this new statistic. "That's not great, but it's better than some of the other numbers you've given me. Right. These blooms won't last until the end of October, but we can force them to produce new ones. It's called deadheading. You remove older flowers, right where they join the stem, and the plant will produce new ones." She grabbed at Yun'tonam's wrist. "Wait. Not now. Once these start to die, then we'll do it."

"How many days?"

"I'm not sure, since they weren't grown traditionally. I'd prefer to let some of them dry completely, to get seeds. I think we can start culling a few as soon as next week, maybe."

Yun'tonam purred. "I look forward to it."

* * *

 **a/n: The official clients for Rachel: Rosalee, Lucky, and Alexa, because Day of the Dead needs orange marigolds, and I give my characters what they want. (See Day of the Dead, Modern Bromance Evolved/2/After Party, or Inktober/14/Fierce). Also, Mon'barac is lying about not needing to learn lessons repeatedly; we all know he is Naza Tempanzi's devoted student (no, I will NOT be writing about that beautiful OTP).**

 **I was going to write something epic for the 2nd international anniversary of XCX, my favorite game of all time. Instead, I offer this piece for a random OC and two dork Orphe. This game gave me a safe place to play with strong characters that didn't insult me, helped me through a very frightening couple of years, and let my brain have fun in a way nothing else has. Game of All Time, and I can't begin to say how grateful I am. Thank you, Monolith Soft. Thank you, Nintendo. And, in closing, port this baby to Switch. 12/04/2017**


End file.
